Cryptocurrencies are disrupting the financial world as we know it. As many newcomer investers have made a lot of cash on this hype. But it's not all champagne and super yachts. Mining new cryptocurrency and particularly Bitcoin, is actually kind of an environmental nightmare. Using up huge amount of electricity and generating thousands of tonnes of electronic trash in the process. But some new players in the crypto community are trying to change that. So is it possible to green up Bitcoin's dirty track record? Can mining digital currency ever actually be good for the environment?

Bitcoin mining guzzled a large amount of electricity and much of that power currently came from burning cheap fossil fuels. Definitely not green or clean. Let's start off with a little crash course on crypto. We're going to focus on Bitcoin, the most popular and widely owned digital currency. To generate new Bitcoins they have to be mined and then recorded on the blockchain. The blockchain is essentially a permanent digital record of all the Bitcoin transactions going on. And it's decentralized. As they win Bitcoin rewards to expand the blockchain, it's lucrative for Bitcoin miners, but highly unsustainable for the planet.

Right now, you would release a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere making one bitcoin transaction. Then there's e-waste. The mining computers burnout or need to be upgraded roughly every 12-18 months. Of all the digital currencies out there, Bitcoin is by far the worst offender when it comes to the environment. The clock seems to be ticking for crypto's most famous poster child to clean up its act. But how could that work?

A possible solution could be generating Bitcoin from toxic waste such as GOB piles and what about using green power sources to mine Bitcoin? As renewable energy becomes cheaper a hybrid model is becoming more popular with Bitcoin miners. But with so much of that energy being wasted to show “proof of work”, bitcoin is still not cutting it when it comes to sustainability.

 So perhaps in the future, carbon emission offsets will just be built into all the polluting transactions we make. So there're pioneers trying to clean up crypto's act. But right now they're still few and far between. Bitcoin and digital currencies are here to stay and if we want to make them sustainable players, then investors, companies and governments will have to start changing the rules of the game.